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Thursday, June 30, 2011

Communication

I just got off the phone with Dolly and Dude's current CPS worker. I called her because court is supposed to be tomorrow and I haven't spoken with anyone involved in this case (except my agency worker). (Never count on your workers to make all the official contacts they are supposed to make. You often have to be proactive and initiate contact yourself if you need to know something.)

Well... court isn't scheduled for tomorrow after all. The judge is going to be on vacation.

Nice for them to let me know. My hubby was going to have to take part of the day off from work to watch Pumpkin as our day care is closing early. Thankfully he doesn't have to miss work now.

We were discussing when visits could be scheduled with mom now that she's out of jail. I expressed a desire for visits to not conflict with nap time. I then mentioned briefly how sleep is a rare commodity now that Dolly & Dude have joined our family. Dude is waking multiple times every night (FOUR times last night!) and Dolly wakes up at least once, if not twice. The CPS worker asked if they are settling in OK.

I explained that they are doing fine overall. I've got enough other kids around that during the day Dolly and Dude are well entertained. They are generally quite happy and easy to care for. (Sleeping is the only issue. I'm sooooooo tired!!)

I then went on to explain that other than the sleeping problems the only other issue is the whole English/Spanish communication breakdown.

She seemed surprised. She told me that she had met with the children two whole times before they were removed. And... well... she said the kids just didn't talk much at all. She didn't seem to think that we would have any communication problems.

Oh. My. Goodness.

She met with the kids two times. Wow. In probably less than ideal circumstances. Cause 2 year olds and 3 year olds warm up instantly to strangers all the time. So she knew completely how well they speak English. And because they didn't speak to her at all, we shouldn't be having any problems.

This was almost laughable to me.

I did go on to explain that both cherubs seem to understand me (for the most part) pretty well. I also let her know that Dolly qualifies for speech therapy per the family doctor I took them to. Funny, the social worker already knew that Dolly has speech delay and was in the process of trying to get mom these services before the kids were removed.

So... the worker knew the kid needed speech therapy but she was comfortable saying that Dolly spoke enough English to be OK in our home?! I'm quite confident that if she actually heard Dolly say anything it was in Spanish. Dolly only knows nouns in English. All of her actual "communication" is in Spanish. And it is delayed (making it even harder to understand)!!

We're going to stick this out for now though. Like I said, the kids seem to understand us OK and they are meshing into our family well (all things considered). CPS is trying to get a home study done on their paternal grandmother. That process is going to take awhile because grandma lives in a completely different district about 9 hours away. Nothing moves quickly in "the system".

I have the pleasure of meeting their worker tomorrow. Should be interesting - though she seemed nice enough on the phone. Court is tentatively scheduled for the week of the 11th but a date hasn't been set yet. And, after court they'll have a new worker as the case will switch departments within CPS.

1 comment:

I would like for these workers who only spend 5 minutes to 1 hr a week even in the same building as our foster kids to quit acting like THEY KNOW THEM. Because they don't.

Little children that have had their life torn apart do not like strangers and don't trust anyone. You, social workers, do not know them unless you take CARE of them. You can pretend you do, but you don't. It isn't helpful to pretend you do. I KNOW MY KIDS AND IF I DON'T "KNOW" YOU VERY WELL I DOUBT MY KIDS DO BECAUSE THE ARE WILL ME 24/7 AND NOT YOU.